Saturday, July 07, 2007

Version 0.85 Infos

Hi,next week I'll start to work on the 0.85 version.

here are some things i'm planning to do:-expand the mp3 player (more information about the played file, maybe shuffle or playlist support)-add a page counter (like in 0.7) -add sound remote control-implement some sort of thumbnail browsing-adjust the precaching and the internal resizing, make it more dynamic (double page problem)-...

thoughts:-there seems to be no need to remove the resolution limit for the other image formats like gif

questions:-are 2 cached images enough? (it works for me)-Is the 111Mhz mode needed? does it really give you more runtime? did anyone test this? I could enhance the gui but the 111mhz mode is holding me back.

68 Comments:

Well, I don't think for me 111mhz should be usefull. It should run too slow in this mode... I think a great thiing should be a wifi option, to read comics from your computer... No?I've ever told you about the zoom... It was ths entire page zoom that you can actually control.The last idea i've had is to record your configurations and to skip easily (combined butons) from one to the other (for example ("comics"->"mangas").Thanks for your work! you're the best!

As the two before me, i think that the 111mhz mode isn't this important. Sure i can run my PSP with it a lot longer than with 333mhz, but it's just too slow.

The cache for 2 pages works fine for me. But there is one thing: Normally i only need one of the two stored pages next to the one i'm viewing. But sometimes after pressing the next picture button, i have again to look at the previous page for something i forgot and then it always takes a while for this page to appear.So with a maximum cache of three pages it would be very good to have an option, that caches one page before the current (1), the current page itself (2) and the page next in the folder (3). By pressing the next button this cache moves one forward, so that (1) gets lost, (2) becomes (1) and (3) has new to be filled while reading the old (3). I think than, you can easily jump between what you have seen and the next page. Hopefully this explanation is understandable...?!

And i miss one thing from the older version 0.7. In this version the zoombox remembered it's position on close. So you could click the zoombox away to view the whole picture or to move to the other site of it (when there are two pages at once) and then you had only to press for the zoombox to appear and it was exactly on the same position where it was before.

I would urge you to consider including CBR/CBZ support. This is the format that many comics come in now a days (they are just renamed extensions of RAR and ZIP respectively).

I know that this feature would be widely appreciated. There is a homebrew app called PSP Comic which does this, but is not as comprehensive an app as yours, so to have the best of both worlds in one app would be amazing. One way or another, amazing work!

chede, I wouldn't want to start an arguement, but many people download in cbr/cbz format - so it would be a very welcome feature to a lot of people. If YOU don't use it, then you could ignore it - but for everyone else it would be quite helpful.

questions:-are 2 cached images enough? (it works for me)For me is enough... but it seems that it cache only the next image, could you put a option to cache the previous image? like Jetta says, sometimes i need go one or two pages back to remeber something on a comic.

-Is the 111Mhz mode needed?it's really slow... i don't use it.

It would be nice to have support for CBZ and CBR files, but i think this could make the homebrew really slow like ComicPSP, because it'll have to descompress the file, and some "mhz" will be lost on this process.

Your program is the best, I use this more than I play on my PSP. I was very sad thinking that you haved discontinued the pepviewer.

A couple of my mp3s play kinda slow when I use the player, my friend says almost all his go slow. I tried increasing it to 333 but they're still slow. Awesome program, thanks to you I can read manga so much easier. ^^

Yuor Programs is the best manga viewer on a psp, and is the only programs that I use on my PSP.I'm writing to thank you and to suggest some new feature:

1) CBR and CBZ support would be great.2)Possible to read manga and switch pages only with one hand, I read manga in metro and usually have only one hand free. For example in best fit mode you could read with up/down and switch pages with left/right. I Know there is the inverse button to switch page but is very uncomfortable on one hand reading.3) 3 page caching (previous p., actual p., next p.).4) 111 MHZ option is useless in my opinion.

I agree with Jetta about this "3 pages cache - previous, current and next page" idea. Perhaps a configurable number of cached pages would be more appropriate (I think.)Compressed files support would be great, since we always download manga and comics in a single compressed file anyway.

Thanks for your hard work, will there be a possible fix for using a 8 GB memory stick? Symptoms include the viewer not loading up at all (blank screen). or directories are blank and you cannot cycle back up to the previous directory.

Homebrew runs with the 1.5 kernel. Anything above the 4gb limit can't be seen by homebrew unfortunately. For everything to work, you need to place your comics and homebrew within the first 4gb. (Can be done by formating the memory stick and placing those files first).

I have a question then one of you can maybe help me, why when I use pepviewer (i think the last release) many times my psp freeze and I have the same screen when my computer has a problem (blue screen with error) ?

Please help me, I don't know what can i do ? I love this program and i don't want to not use it...

I enjoy this a great deal but feel that instead of focusing on a smoother interface that you could look into making it better at conserving power.

I use LightMp3 to listen to music and can easily get 10-12 hours of battery life from my PSP when listening to music all day.

Add to that I use irsmp3 to listen to music while reading emags like XtremePSP on my PSP (since for some reason it is blurry when using this, that and this takes up more power even when I listen to music and read through the magazine).

So I was wondering if it would be possible that you look into making a lighter version of this, or even a plug-in for custom firmware users that allowed for a bookmark or two and the same sort of zoom when viewing photos from the XMB.

Anyways, thanks for this. No matter what happens I'll definately have a go with the newest version.

Adding my two cents, I do like the idea of adding CBZ/CBR/ZIP/RAR if it were possible under the limitations you're already working under, but I also agree with other posters that this is a luxury feature. Compressing the files looks to be a file ease feature more than it is a savings, I think, since I've noticed that the ZIPs I'm uncompressing now that I've switched to PEP from PSP Comic (both quite nice applets) are actually about the same and sometimes even smaller uncompressed. The files are already shrunk down once to JPEG, you don't wring much more out of them in a ZIP file unless the compression is very high (which is time-intensive on both ends.)

I do like the idea of having the cache on both ends of the current picture, as I've often had to refer back to a page for details I didn't catch or names I want to remember.

My suggestion for improving PEP Viewer, however, has to do with the Bookmark feature. How dependent is the application on only having those ten or so bookmarks? I'm finding that this is not enough, and that the saving system in general is confusing and leads to errors. For example, I jump between books a lot, or I'll check back on an old book (maybe the first book in a series, or one with a character sheet) before reading the next chapter of a different book, but if I didn't set the bookmark before jumping, I have to find my page again. Or I'll be reading the first few pages of a new book if I don't have time to get through a full chapter of a longer book (or just be flipping through images) and I'll use the Start menu to quickly bookmark before I quit the application, but because the Start menu doesn't let me choose the bookmark number, I'll overwrite the bookmark I was using with the longer book I was already into.

So, my suggestion is a two-type bookmark feature. One a manual Bookmark like you have now, where users mark pages they're on with the 10-bookmark engine. The second, however, would be a more automatic Page Leaf (like a folded page corner leafed in a book) for EACH book in your collection that you have read (broken down by folder, or ZIP if that was added) for the last page that was left off in that book. The page file for this would I think not be that difficult (PSP Comic does it, its bookmark format there is relatively cut-and-dry), and I'm assuming it can be done without a book count limit or else with a long limit on how many books it can keep leafs for? Leafs could either automatically save every now and again (there's a cool GBA text reader that saves every line read so when your batteries die it's exactly there, but Memory Stick accessing/writing drain isn't worth that) or it could save when you choose to exit the application (via the quit function, nothing you can do if people shut down without saving.)

It might be nice then to also allow quick text notes for Bookmarks - a bookmark is good for saving your place and also for marking your favorite pages, and if I could write a pop-up note that says, "Character Sheet" or "First Mention of CharacterX" or "Favorite Drawing Ever" or "Google this reference when you get home" or whatever that caught my eye on that bookmarked page and made me want to refer back to it, that'd be cool.

If all of that leafing is too confusing or bothersome, maybe an easier solution is to have an 11th floating "Quick Save" bookmark. The bookmark you would use when you hit Start would not be one of your regular 10 bookmarks, those you'd set manually by going into the Bookmark browser. That way, you wouldn't erase one that you set by hand accidentally. You also would be able to tell better what's going on in the Bookmark menu, because maybe the 10 regular bookmarks would be one font color but the QuickSave that you're always overwriting is another color at the top or the bottom (and is always the first choice to overwrite, since I find that I sometimes mistakenly hit Square and have to quit out without saving when I'm trying to use the Bookmark browser but forget what the buttons are.) On start-up, then, the system would begin with whatever's in your QuickSave bookmark rather than now that it starts with whatever bookmark you last accessed.

Hope that helps! Great app, by the way. I'll add some more comments on usability if I think of anything more that might help.

Posting it again here, maybe it has a higher chance of getting noticed here, cause I think it's an issue (more than moving gifs etc ;)

Hi,

first of all, this is an amazing program, it's the main reason I still use my PSP, to read my daily portion of Comics. The fact that I had to unpack and resize every comic I want to read, was a minor setback, but I could live with it. Now in this release, I don't have to resize anything anymore, just unpack, which saves a lot of time, amazing job.

But is there still a max size for a picture?

If I watch my unresized comics (2500x2500 and up sometimes), and especially the double pages, pepviewer regularly locks up, and sometimes I even get a "psp blue screen of death".

If I try to open a double page that's too big, 2 things can happen.a) the loading icon appears, but nothing happens, not even after a long long long time.b) The loading icon appear, but nothing happens for a long long time. After a while (when I'm reading an other page that opens, while in the menu, or while waiting) the PSP crashes.

In both cases I can just stop the loading, go to the menu and do everything else. But in some cases the PSP crashes like I said, and in other cases PEPviewer just stops opening any file at all. I can browse, do whatever I want, but I can't view any file.

Would be nice if you could fix that in a future release if possible ;)

Keep up the good work

(sorry if it's a bit messy, I'm not shakespeare ;) )

I can post some camera pics somewhere next week, when I'm back home, to show the error more in detail)

ye could you add cbr / cbz format.Also the order of the comic pages on pepviewer should go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 instead of what they are now that is 1,10,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 which is annoying so could you do that cause it gets on my nerves renaming my comic pages a,b,c ect.

The first is the ability to use the remote for skipping songs, pausing and resuming.For me this is a big thing since I don't like to have to quit the program just to listen to my music easily when I know that I'll be right back to reading the comic I was reading as soon as I sit down again.

The second feature is for the music to not loop back to the start of a folder and instead work like the regular music player and move on to the first song of the next folder.This would make extended reading sessions more enjoyable rather then having to stop reading a comic for a bit just to switch to a new album.

Thanks for the consideration, I really look forward to the next release.

I think that the way that is now to forwarding the page is perfect i think you want the x button to pe next page is because the L and R buttons you have are damaged. It is cool the way that it is now. the only think that could make this a perfect viewer is viewing pictures directly from rar

PEP Viewer is my choice for reading manga on the PSP, but ever since I switch to the PSP SLIM, it's no longer working. I'm DOOMED. I'm willing to provide generous support if you intend to port it to SLIM!

i would just like to say thanks for a wonderful peace of homebrew it is a god send for my manga viewing needs being able to have the images arranged in alphabetical order helps allot and now being able to listen to music wile reading makes this my new favorite peace of homebrew i have ever gotten thanks a million for this.

P.S. any chance i can get a look at the source if so please email me at alexanderharms@gmail.com

Just a thought of an option which i would find useful would be to have the function to resize your images in menu as i enjoy reading my comics using the "width" option but find it difficult to read some of the captions.i have tried the full page mode but dont fancy the scrolling all over the place to read everything. If you could somehow resize images so that only a small amount of side scrolling was needed, just enough to read the captions clearly that would be great.

I like Pepviewer but i have come across a certain issue, I'm using V0.8, I notice how while reading my manga that is in png format, an odd few were poorly displayed. This irregularity made the page un readable. From it's appearance it made the manga page tiny and slowly placing a bigger version of the page as you go down the page. Course the last one in the bottom is cut and really difficult to make out, along with the rigth side filled with grey and sort of lines or sumthing. Anyone have this problem or can explain for it's solution.